I like the Internets ... a lot.

August 2008

08/31/2008

Spring has always been my favorite time of year. There has always been something about shifting out of winter and seeing the hope and promise of new opportunities. The new green grass, the buds on the trees, and the extended hours of daylight all seem to recharge me. Historically I've been less bullish on Fall. I always seem to dread the move from Summer into Winter, often ignoring the fact that Fall in PA is a wonderful time of year. But for the second year in a row I find myself really excited about the change of season ... it never used to mean much to me, but I am strangely eager to see the leaves change. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

Yesterday I went to the opening PSU game and took my daughter along. We had great seats and unlike the game we attended last year, she made it well past the first three minutes. She seemed to look at it all with very different eyes this year. I think she is seeing the spectacle of it through new lenses ... the energy of the crowd and the power of the student section in particular really seemed to perk her interest. At times I caught her paying quite a bit more attention to the fans and the surroundings than the game itself. But, since at one point she said, "Daddy, I only cheer when all the people in blue do" I figured the game of football hasn't quite made it into her conceptual framework. No problem ... Beaver Stadium is quite the place to take in the sights and sounds of the experience.

It dawned on me as I prepare to see her off to first grade this year that answering the bell in the Fall is one of the things I've started to look forward to. I tend to measure my life in semesters for the most part -- spending two decades in school and now a third as a member of the higher education community, my view of time is influenced heavily by the academic calendar. Maybe that is why my interest in Fall has started to take over -- I see huge promise in the start of a new year. Not sure, but I like it.

It also makes me realize that I am feeling a real sense of belonging ... I am now more than ever convinced that my choice to be in higher education is the right one. If I am eager to hear the school bell ring at the start of a new year, I must be in the right place. I've struggled with this choice for quite some time, but feel proud of the fact I spend my time here. I am watching with great anticipation as my daughter heads off to public school to see how long her enthusiasm for school lasts. I hope it is a lifetime.

08/29/2008

Well, today is the last work day in the month of August. It has been a month filled with travel, events, and writing. All of these things have shifted my perspective a bit and given me new reasons to be energetic about starting another academic year. The month was kicked off by my own, self-imposed, One Post a Day challenge that a bunch of others took up. That in and of itself was surprising, the fact that I am now writing the final entry in my August challenge is stunning. When I set out, I was fully prepared for the reality that I couldn't pull it off ... I think deciding ahead of time made it feel more improbable. With a little perspective, I'd like share some things that I've discovered along the way.

Including this post, I've written 22 individual entries here at this blog this past month. I actually posted a few more over at my PSU Blog during the month as well. 22 entries is the most I've ever done in a month -- but not by many (I actually had more a couple of months, but those numbers were inflated by the import of class blogs). It surprised me to dig through my archives and see that I was writing quite a bit in 2007 -- actually getting close to a post a day on a few occasions. I think what made this different was that I was joined by other people and it felt like a community activity.

There have been 93 comments contributed this month ... this is perhaps the best part! Of course some of them are by me and I think I learned something early this month about sustaining conversations ... I learned that I have to be an active participant in the comment stream if I want it to stay alive. Too many times I write and wait for comments ... one or two trickle in and I don't engage those people. It appears to me that when I actively respond to comments it really does generate new comments. I'd like to add that I also got one comment via email that pushed me through the last week when my travel got crazy. I won't share who it was from as I didn't seek permission, but I'll share the comment ... BTW, it made the month worth it!

"Before I acquiesce to the demands of another semester I want to send a quick thanks for One Post a Day. It's been a staple of my daily blog diet. You added an important, needed dimension to my summer thoughts."

Now, when I started I had established some rules for myself to follow ... the most important to me was that I wouldn't mail it in and just post a link, instead working hard to share insights that are related somehow to the things I do on a professional level. I think I accomplished that -- for the most part. I admit to having a few really difficult days finding my voice as it relates to educational technology. Some days it just doesn't flow. I opted once or twice to offer more personal reflections and I allowed those through. I hope it didn't offend.

I found that there were times that I couldn't resist writing ... in other words, there were days when I would write four or five posts and force myself to time release them. I would write and use the tools in WordPress to auto publish posts at the right day and time. One nice by product of that is if you set the publish date into the future, the post is available on the iPhone app for editing. That made it very nice while traveling. The other thing it did was give me a chance to more completely explore a thread ... early in the month I was hooked on the idea that the cloud was supporting much of my work. Writing a handful of posts in a row gave me the ability to write more of a story (chapter style) and really explore my thinking. I'm not sure, looking back, if the connected posts over a few days were more appreciated by readers than the seemingly random topics that emerged as the month wore on.

Finally, as I stated in an earlier post, there have been some strange outcomes. I've felt more balanced as a person -- spending more time focused on my health, family, and other responsibilities outside the office. I've found that writing in a consistent way gives me a place to retreat to. I am not the kind of person who take a lot of time to write and edit posts -- I would say I spend no more than 10-20 minutes writing and posting each one of these entries. But doing it everyday has driven me (in a positive way) to reflect in an ongoing way ... thinking about my ideas for a longer period of time as I walk through my days. I like the way its made me feel.

The funny thing is that I hadn't checked my google analytics until just now and I have to say I am a bit stunned at the increase in daily traffic ... I guess it stands to reason, but fresh content really does bring people in. I wonder what that would do to a course site that was using our Blogs at Penn State? If we as instructors posted everyday would we see increased contributions from our students and the world in general? I'm not sure, but it may be worth finding out. So, with all that I say thank you! Thank you to all those who left comments, showed up to read, urged me on via face to face conversations, or took part in the challenge. The whole thing has left me with new energy and new questions to explore. I know for a fact I won't be publishing once a day from here on out, but I do know that I will be having critical conversations with colleagues who are teaching using blogs ... there are new things to explore and I am excited to do so. Talk to you sometime in September!

08/28/2008

Back in May I was asked to pull a group of people together to envision a new site and set of resources to help educate Penn State students to the ills of illegal downloading, plagiarism, and other cyber-based issues that face our campus on a regular basis. When we got the team together for the first time it was clear that the group wanted to do something different -- we wanted to share messages that weren't preachy and didn't just say "stealing is bad." We wanted to build something that provided insights into why it was wrong, but we wanted to let the students come to these conclusions without us beating them over the head.

After the first meeting I asked my friend and colleague, Allan Gyorke, to take the lead and run with the project. A few weeks later he and the team emerged with a plan that I thought was a little too ambitious, but he assured me they could pull it all off prior to the start of classes. In addition to the requisite website, they would take that positive approach we talked about and would create a series of videos that featured students being visited by their future selves at critical junctures in their own decision making process. What blows my mind is that we produced these videos end to end in ETS. They were written by the team, directed, shot, edited ... you name it. The professionalism in the outcomes is outstanding. Take a look at the most recent one below.

Allan took some very lose conversations and turned it into a very powerful demonstration of what can be done when a team of people get behind a vision. In the other two videos the notion of Creative Commons is exposed as real solutions to the challenges facing the students. What I like about sharing the CC idea is that students can actually learn something about the environment they spend so much time in online. Too many people don't understand copyright and it feels like this project is a first step towards us taking a new approach in sharing alternatives. I think if students took the time to understand alternatives, we'd see far fewer violations. I know the Digital Commons staff are making sure this is a big part of the message they share when working with faculty and students on digital media pieces. What more can we do? If you have ideas for subsequent Copyright Perspectives videos, please let us know!

08/27/2008

I'm a little late today with the One Post a Day, but given I am on vacation and the month is winding down, writing has become a little more difficult for me. Today as I was bouncing through email and feeds I got a note that I had a friend request in Facebook ... so I logged in and confirmed the request, but while I was there I looked through my personal News Feed. One of the videos that a friend commented on was from last night's Democratic National Convention. I watched that and started to think about a couple of things that I thought I'd share.

The first is how irritated I am at the way our networks (cable and the big three) cover events. If you aren't watching C-Span you don't get to see what is really going on. Instead of just letting us see the speakers we have to endure hours of the pundits telling us what to think. Additionally, they have these ridiculous crawls going on at the bottom of the screen -- and CNN, WTF with the VH1 style trivia bubbles? I don't need it. So the video I was directed to out of FB just now took me to one of the speeches that wasn't being openly covered on the network I was watching and it was great. I'm not sure of the legality of it (as the video I watched was posted by an individual and not the network itself), but having instant access to alternative points of view is a very interesting opportunity for teaching and learning. Surly the coverage of the DMC is quite different on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, FOX, and the others. It probably wouldn't be too tough to instantly create a handful of tabs in the browser that shows network reactions to the exact same events taking place. It would also be interesting to see which ones actually let the event be broadcasted versus talking over what is happening. The online conversation could also prove interesting ...

After watching the video I got a little bit of a youtube bug and bounced to the front page. I'm logged in under our own TLT account so I saw new videos from my friends. The first one was a piece actually produced here at WPSU about World War II and showing on the WPSU YouTube Channel. I love the oral history approach to building new understandings and these pieces are powerful stuff. This past year our FACAC survey showed us that youtube is one of the most popular and frequently used technologies to support teaching and learning. How great is it that we have rich (and ever expanding) access to locally produced content? I know we are looking to use our youtube space more effectively in the coming year and I know more and more faculty who are exploring youtube for good ideas. The video below was one that I thought could promote some very interesting conversations in a class setting ...

Last week while at Mont Alto we had a discussion about youtube in the classroom after I showed the "Charlie Bit Me ... Again" video. People thought it was funny, but that was about it. I then tried to share some thoughts as to why I found it more than funny. What I find striking about youtube is the community activity a good/funny/interesting video can promote. If you look at anything that is popular you see dozens, if not hundreds, of comments in the form of text and video that are done as reactions, story movers, or parodies of the original. The ability to use existing content and then use the content environment to promote and stimulate conversations seems like it could be a very interesting opportunity.

Why have students watch a video at youtube and then go into ANGEL (or somewhere else) to write a response? I'd like to find ways to have them use the environment to post a follow up video or comment to see what happens. I really like the idea that the space provides some layer of motivation for participation. Can that same environment be used to draw classes into conversations related to digital media? I think so, but would be curious what others think.

BTW, this isn't limited to youtube ... take a look at the affordances that an environment like Flickr has for conversations related to imagery.

08/26/2008

I'm not sure this is worthy of my One Post a Day goals I laid out a while back ... I've been pretty quiet for the last few days because I have been traveling. As a matter of fact, I am typing this post in the San Francisco Airport. I've been in Medford, Oregon since Friday visiting one of my oldest friends, KP. KP and I go way back -- maybe third grade or so? KP moved to Oregon about four years ago when he got married to his lovely wife. The chance to make a quick (albeit exhausting) trip to the west coast to see him doesn't come around all that often, but earlier this summer my wife and I decided I should make the time since KP had just had his first child. So, we picked some dates -- we had no idea when we booked that the month of August was going to be a total travel month -- and I just packed up and came on out. It was well worth the trip.

Since Friday I've golfed (I shot better than I have in years with a straight up 84 with borrowed clubs), visited wineries, sat on his back deck with his little man, visited more wineries, explored small towns, ate great food, and really just relaxed. It is honestly impossible to find ways to capture the beauty of the Souther Oregon Rogue River region ... the mountains, the grapes, and everything in between is breathtaking. Nice to stop and taste life a bit.

It was interesting seeing KP in his own element. When he comes east he sort of comes in as the old KP, but in his new hometown he is someone much different. Trust me, KP is the kind of person who can be anyone he wants and still be a blast!

So I am beat and getting ready to take off on a red eye so I can be back in State College by 10 AM. I'll then race home to spend a week with my family. I can't wait to see them and to take the rest of the week to get my little lady ready to go off to public school and to spend some "outside time" with my little man watching him play in the backyard. Summer has sprinted by us and Fall isn't waiting for us to catch up. A great summer and a great way to end it -- visiting old friends and getting to spend the waning hours of it with my own family.

08/25/2008

As we start a new semester here at the University I thought it might be important to share some thoughts about how this summer has been different than others for me. My reflections are primarily related to work, but who knows if some personal stuff emerges. This summer has bolted by just as others before it ... the difference I see here is how perspective changing, progressive, proactive, connected, and encouraging this one has been. I've probably worked harder this summer than many in the past -- and that includes the years doing nothing but maintenance, painting, and the other odd jobs I did in high school, college, and during grad school. This summer I moved my thinking in new directions and we tried things as a group within ETS that stretched us and pushed us forward. The results, in my mind, have laid the groundwork for what I hope will become the root of our most substantial progress to date.

My personal and professional tipping point came early in the summer when I traveled to Harvard University and attended the Berkman at 10 event. To say it was transformative would be an understatement. The idea that spending a few days around people who spend their time thinking critically about how the Internet empowers and should promote openness was an amazing opportunity. I walked away from Berkman with a new clarity that I have tried in the subsequent months to embrace in new ways. I am even more focused on the notion that the Internet is a platform that not only provides new affordances, but actually encourages openness, collaboration, and community. Getting to hear people whom I have spent years reading was a thrill ... getting to have dinner with David Weinberger and to engage in real conversations with he and others at our table was a thrill. When I say thrill I don't mean it was like getting to meet a rock star, it was an opportunity to test my own legs as I was working through my own ideas that I feel have been built on their foundations. It left me oddly depressed and so motivated at the same time. It pushed me to want to create an environment like the Berkman Center here at my own Institution that works to create a knowledge community and I am working towards that lofty goal.

Organizationally, the thing that jumps out at me as the biggest move this summer was the opportunity to add Dr. Carla Zembal-Saul to ETS as a resident faculty fellow this summer. I'm not going to recount her work here only because she and the rest of the team did a masterful job of capturing it in the ETS wikispace. Her work, connected to our staff and relationships, have built new opportunities that I think will lead to a real change in the ways faculty and students embrace the notion of reflection as a learning tool. The portfolio work she pushed at us has changed the conversation in our organization and it has forced us to see it as a larger opportunity. It pushed to get our stuff together to the point where we can now point to tangible projects that will see students and faculty engaging in portfolios in a systematic way within at least two colleges on campus. That to me is very exciting. Carla's work has not only inspired us within ETS, it has had an interesting effect on other innovative and open thinking faculty -- they are encouraged to be fellows. I think going forward this has the potential to change our dynamic with faculty across the board and will help us create a sustainable model for engagement that could grow deep roots.

The idea that our local community could come together and create a first rate professional development event that brings together over 100 people is stunning. The fact that it happen is even more incredible to me. The Learning Design Summer Camp represents the change that is happening across our Institution -- there are fresh ideas, fresh faces, and fresh energy that are pushing us all to do a better job at creating shared expectations. The LDSC08 represents the movement that is underway across campus -- one that points to the power of community in a real a sense. This is the real life, meat space, embodiment of web 2.0 ... it is tangible evidence that social networks, if fostered and supported, are real. That Twitter can coalesce real face to face interaction that is both meaningful and lasting. The events leading up to and at the LDSC08 are proof that we can be a force to be reckoned with. What we do with this new found power is the critical question.

There is so much more that went on this Summer that warrants individual posts ... the ones above are the ones I see as having sustainable impact at PSU. We've done quite a bit more -- new versions of Adobe Connect, a new and enhanced publishing platform in the blogs at Penn State, achieved goals with iTunes U that are still unspeakable, built plans for a new graduate student initiative to impact discipline specific activity, put in a half dozen new Digital Commons facilities across our Commonwealth, embarked on a project to impact thousands of composition students, and so much more. It was a good Summer ... We honestly won't know the real impact for months, but things are moving in a great direction. A huge thank you that made it so special to me and who have put their heart and soul into making vision a reality.

08/22/2008

Yesterday I spent time at the Mont Alto campus of Penn State working with faculty to help share the story of teaching and learning with technology. I was strangely intimidated as I sat in the back of the room waiting for my turn to talk. I'm not sure why, given the fact that talking in front of people is typically not something I get uptight about. As I reflect on it now I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I realized just how close I was to our primary audience. The room was filled with faculty who value teaching at such a high level and are repeatedly put into situations that make them question change ... these are the people who want so badly to be innovative but sometimes walk without the support structures they need to take advantage of our opportunities.

When I was at IST, one of the goals of the Solutions Institute was to create a set of online course materials that could be used by resident faculty all across the Commonwealth. The materials needed to be designed so they could be easily pulled into a resident section and serve as the basis for each of the core undergraduate IST courses. One of the things I had to do each semester was stand up in front of the statewide faculty and share what was new, what we were thinking about, and talk about how to take advantage of Online IST. It scared the hell out of me each and every time I did it.

But you know what? Each and every time it turned out to be a great experience. Faculty telling stories about how using Online IST allowed them manage four or five sections of courses, how they would never have been able to integrate technology without it, or other inspiring stories related to teaching. Yesterday turned out to be the same way -- a packed room of motivated and interested faculty all looking to enhance the story of their classrooms. Sure there were skeptics who pushed back on me when I talked about how critical portfolios are to the reflection process, there were people that rolled their eyes as I shared ideas about using youtube to engage students, and so on. But, without a doubt, it was an engaged and very interested group.

The thing it reminded me is that when we build new opportunities for our University, we are building them for all of our faculty -- at all locations. Just because we don't see them on a regular basis doesn't mean they don't exist. Traveling to Mont Alto and being nervous reminded me that our community stretches well beyond College Ave. and it is our responsibility to include everyone in the mix. You should have seen the response when I offered to come back with more ETS staff to dig deeper into these new opportunities ... overwhelmingly, faculty wanted to learn how to integrate new opportunities into their classrooms. I am now more than ever committed to expanding Digital Commons and using it as a vehicle to move more efforts into faculty development across all of our campuses so all of our faculty and students get what they deserve. It was a good trip that will be the first of many I suspect.

08/21/2008

I have been lucky enough to work on a really killer project with some of my colleagues from the PSU College of Education related to pre-service teachers. Dr. Carla Zembal Saul (ETS Faculty Fellow) worked like mad with her colleagues to create a one laptop per student project here at the University to make sure all of the students in the Elementary and Kindergarten Education (EKED) or Secondary English Education programs have the tools they need to be dialed into the 21st Century Skills that teachers require. From the EDUCATE website:

The requirement is part of a new program, titled Exploring Directions in Ubiquitous Computing and Teacher Education (EDUCATE). Juniors who will enter the Elementary and Kindergarten Education (EKED) or Secondary English Education (SECED ENGL) majors in Fall 2008 will be the first to participate in this program.

What I find particularly interesting about this (in addition to all the laptops being MacBooks) is that the College seems to be really doing this right. They have a director in Orrin Murray who really gets it, there is an intense focus on finding new ways to engage these students in the classroom, and there is support for faculty trying to make it happen. What all this means to me is that these machines are creating new affordances for both the students and the faculty. I see faculty getting what they need in the way of pedagogical support from within the College and from a team like we have in ETS and I see students learning not how to use a computer, but how to use a computer to open doors in their own classrooms. That is a very important distinction in my mind.

Two days ago my Flickr feed exposed me to some pictures from students getting their MacBooks ... the photo set tells an amazing story. It is hard to believe that these are pictures from my own campus. So cool.

The last bit to all this that has me very excited is that Carla has a big hand in what is going on in this space and she spent the Summer with ETS as a Faculty Fellow investigating the Penn State Blogs as a powerful portfolio toolset. I know she's integrating portfolio thinking into her pieces of this and that means we have a whole group of students with the right tools, the right mentorship, and the right affordances to make progress happen.

08/20/2008

When I started doing the One Post a Day project for the month of August I really wasn't sure what would come of it. I made a couple little challenges in it to see if anyone wanted to join in and a few takers emerged. While it has been relatively difficult to keep the pace up, I've been able to figure it out. There has been a few very surprising things that have emerged from it.

First of all, I am taking a few more minutes everyday to think in a little more structured way. Typically my head is filled with swirling thoughts that have some structure, but not enough to really put my arms around. I find myself grabbing at those thoughts as thread starters of sorts and working to organize them into a story that I can write about. I am calling it a story, because I am working to structure the ideas in a way that I can expose them in short bursts without a ton of build up, explanation, or long term depth. I am thinking hard about how to write to the point and use examples to expose the concept I am working towards.

Another thing I am finding is that I am taking more time to comment elsewhere on other peoples' posts. With more fresh content everyday I am working to read things and reflect on their thoughts as well. I have been trying to comment on at least one of my colleague's post a day, but have found myself doing more than that. An added bonus is that I discovering more people through the enhanced blogging that is going on.

Finally, and this is the strangest thing I have noticed, I am more interested in getting exercise and physical activity. I'm not sure where that is coming from, but I think having my head a little clearer has given me the space to remember that I used to love to be very active. I've started playing tennis again and just added a second weekly match ... my game is still coming into shape, but it feels great to be dead tired after a couple of sets. The coolest thing for me, given my long time love of biking, is that I have finally started to ride my bike to work. A lot of people give me shit about my Cafe Racer, but it is exactly what I wanted when I decided I needed something that was more street friendly. I actually bought it last summer and rode it to work exactly once. I've tripled that in the last three days and can't say enough about how much more focused and (dare I say it) happy I feel at work. Not sure what is going on but I have exercised in one way or another everyday for the past seven days ... not great for most, but with my recent track record, it is great.

So the One a Day challenge has had some surprising side effects ... I think I need to consider what to tackle in September to keep it going.

08/19/2008

So yesterday all of a sudden my blog stopped accepting comments. All of my posts were set to comments closed. No idea how it happened, but it did. Was I hacked? Did the configuration somehow get blown up? Things seemed to be OK otherwise, but the idea that all of a sudden something like comments could just be turned off is very strange. This issue came at a time when I really didn't have the cycles to really figure it out. When I started to investigate it I jumped on IM hoping to find someone to help ... no one there. So instead of sending an email to my much smarter friends I tried asking twitter. As one would assume, it worked. Within a few minutes a former student of mine Twittered the solution. Amazing and wonderful! That kind of speed is new.

To me this is the story of web 2.0 that is emerging -- the speed at which connected communities can influence change has become astonishing. Would I have gotten my answer without Ben's Twitter help? Sure ... much, much later. The idea that there is a network there to help at 11:00 PM is pretty amazing. This is a reason why the State College PD and PSU itself started Tweeting -- they recognize that working within targeted, connected, and interested communities works.

If I pull back from this I can begin to see interesting opportunities in the teaching and learning world. For the most part, classes don't emerge as communities unless something very special happens. Each semester is different and it is completely unplanned (but hoped for). One semester the thing just clicks and others not so much. The results from the last class I taught were in line with this -- Twitter worked. If we tried it again it may or may not. What I am seeing though is that Twitter has the power to bind communities in ways that are weirdly refreshing to me. When groups of people decide to join and participate they are creating new opportunities to create shared experiences ... that tells me they are going to create a shared awareness with each other. This creates a situation where people can quickly come to the aide of each other and create change very quickly. I see this on Facebook every now and then, but Twitter has taken over the title of community creator for me.